A rapid, inexpensive and large-scale DNA extraction method involving minimal purification that is applicable to various soil/ microbe mixture types was developed in this study. Results of evaluation of the novel technique indicated that pooling of several genomic DNA extractions and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplicons will reduce variation among samples. Using the bead beating DNA extraction method described here, crude microbial DNA could be extracted from a variety of soil types and dilution of this DNA was sufficient for successful PCR amplification from both high- and low-copy number genes.